In memory of

Lawrence T. Murphy

1947 2024
The Years AfterNovember 18, 2024

Died of it afterward.

United States of America

Their life

Lawrence T. Murphy was born on January 27, 1947, to James and Ida Murphy in Brooklyn, New York. Larry was the eighth of nine children. He was always so proud of the street he grew up on and referred to it as the “Best Block in Brooklyn.” Growing up in Brooklyn, Larry enjoyed playing all sports. Whether a game of pick up at the local school yard to just chipping in for a Spaulding and playing stoop ball. Larry spoke often about these times and kept in touch with friends he grew up with. Lawrence graduated from St. Agnes High School in New York City. In 1966, Larry began his service in the United States Army as a military police officer. He was stationed at Fort Benjamin Harris in Evansville, Indiana. He was always proud of his time serving his country. After several jobs, Larry heard from the Fire Department of New York City and started his career as a firefighter on November 5, 1977. He was assigned to Engine 255/Ladder 157 in Brooklyn. During his career, Larry was awarded the Robert L. Dolney Medal for a rescue in which he navigated a fire in a hoarding situation. He rescued the owner, who was unconscious. Larry and his fellow firefighters resuscitated the victim, who made a full recovery. In his later years, Larry worked as a battalion aide for the 41 Battalion in Brooklyn. Throughout the years, Larry enjoyed spending time with his wife, Janice, and two daughters, Michael Ann and Jacqueline. In later years he became known as the “Best Papa” by his grandsons, Brayden and Logan, as well as his granddaughter, Shay. For years he enjoyed volunteering at a local soup

kitchen and being there for his community. Larry was always there for others and was known as the “go-to guy.” Larry served in the rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero. Due to his time at Ground Zero, Larry was forced to retire from the FDNY on June 24, 2005, due to pulmonary issues. As a result of his condition, Larry passed away on November 18, 2024. He is forever missed by all who knew him.

How they died

Firefighter of the Fire Department of the City of New York, who died of an illness from the rescue and recovery at the World Trade Center. The department added the name to its World Trade Center Memorial Wall at the ceremony of 09 September 2025. He died on 18 November 2024, aged 77.

The Years After

September 11, 2001

For eight months after the towers came down, men and women worked the site. Firefighters, police, paramedics, iron workers, truck drivers, cleaners, volunteers. They breathed what was in that air, and many of them have died of it since - cancers, lung disease, illnesses that took ten years or twenty to arrive.

More people have now died of September 11th than were killed on September 11th. They are not a footnote to the day. They are the day, arriving late.

A man who walked down eighty flights and out into the street, and who died of a cancer in 2031, was killed by the same attack as the man who never got out. This gate holds them together, because the same morning took them both.

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September 11, 2001

September 11, 2001

On a clear Tuesday morning, four airliners were taken. Two were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York, one into the western face of the Pentagon, and one came down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after the passengers and crew went forward at the cockpit door.

Two thousand nine hundred and seventy-seven people were killed. Three hundred and forty-three were firefighters of the New York City Fire Department. Seventy-one were law enforcement officers. Eight were paramedics and emergency medical technicians. One hundred and twenty-five died at the Pentagon, military and civilian together. The rest - some two thousand four hundred of them - had gone to work, or boarded a plane, and belonged to no service at all.

None of them began that morning as heroes. A great many of them ended it as heroes: men and women who carried strangers down stairwells, who stayed with people who could not walk, who held a door, who went back up. Four men on a flight over Pennsylvania, who had thirty minutes of telephone calls and knew what had already happened, decided where their aircraft would come down.

At Arlington, the nation set aside its own rules of eligibility and buried the Pentagon's civilian dead in national ground. It had decided that on this day the distinction did not apply.

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Where this happened is not drawn yet.

Media

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